InvestorInsights: Amit Arora

Prabhakar Kudva, an engineer by education and an investor by choice, chronicles his serendipitous journey in to the world of value investing and shares some useful insights on portfolio construction

Amit Arora is one of the founders and Chief Investment Officer of Eleven Dimension Funds. After two short stints in India he had the privilege to serve United Nations, based out of Europe from 2000 through 2007.

Since 2007 he has been rendering professional consulting services to a number of New Zealand Government organisations such as Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment, Ministry of Social Development, Inland Revenue Department, Regional Health Boards as an Independent Consultant.

Amit started and managed an investment partnership registered in India under Indian Partnership Act 1932 with a selective total of nine partners out of one hundred and fifteen plus who evinced interest in joining, with a successful track record from 2012-2014.

He is passionate about spirituality, investments, technology and a need for well rounded and balanced life to realise human potential.

Safal Niveshak (SN): Could you tell us a little about your background, how you got interested in investing, and how you’ve evolved over time as an investor?

Amit Arora (AA): I chose Commerce in 11th standard and did MBA in Finance. I landed a below-mediocre first job with Peerless General Finance and Investment Company which felt like 10 years, though it lasted only for 10 months. In 1999, I saw IT folks earning more money, much more than me. So, I was working for money, not passion, I chose to go into software development. I trained in C, Java and got sacked along with rest of the team in 2000. I then stayed at home for 4 months. Then, thanks to luck, I got a few months consulting job in United Nations in Italy in 2001 after a brief unemployment period. This contract kept extending every 3-6 months from 2001 until I got bored by 2006.

I was 30 years old in 2006, no social circle, I preferred being alone by nature, I was twice as old as a teenager, so my hormones started to kick in by now, no girlfriend ever by this time, so I decided to get married in arranged marriage manner in India through our parents, and then thought of moving to an English speaking country like the New Zealand, US, England, Australia or Canada. I wanted to try consulting for Indian companies like Wipro of Infosys for some time, but my better half did not, so we moved to New Zealand in 2007.

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